7 septembre 2021 | International, Aérospatial
Air Force, Boeing Trying to Tackle Tanker Challenges
10 juin 2022 | International, Naval
The United States has approved a possible $120 million sale of parts to help Taiwan maintain its warships, which the island's defence ministry said would help ensure combat readiness in the face of China's "frequent activities" near the island.
25 octobre 2018 | International, Aérospatial
By: Valerie Insinna and Sebastian Sprenger WASHINGTON and LIÈGE, Belgium — Belgium appears poised to select Lockheed Martin's F-35 over the Eurofighter Typhoon as its next-generation fighter jet, with government sources on Oct. 22 telling national news outlet Belga that an F-35 victory has already been decided. The Belgian government is expected to formally announce its decision before Oct. 29, Reuters reported on Monday. A Lockheed Martin spokesman said he could not confirm whether Belgium had communicated its choice to the firm, but said the company remains confident in its offering. “The F-35 offers transformational capability for the Belgian Air Force and, if selected, will align them with a global coalition operating the world's most advanced aircraft,” Mike Friedman said in an emailed statement. “The F-35 program is built on strong international partnerships, and our proposal includes significant industrial opportunities for Belgian companies to contribute to the global F-35 enterprise.” The F-35 was widely considered the favorite in the competition, which included the Eurofighter — a partnership among the United Kingdom, Italy, Spain and Germany. This summer, Belgium announced that it would also consider two options in addition to the F-35 and Typhoon: France's Dassault Rafale or upgrading its existing F-16 fleet instead of purchasing new aircraft. U.S. aerospace behemoth Boeing and Sweden's Saab pulled out of the competition last year, with Boeing claiming that Belgium's requirements favored the F-35 and Sweden stating that it was not able to provide the operational support needed by the Belgian Air Component. A win by the F-35 would further solidify the joint strike fighter's dominance among U.S. allies in Europe and deal a heavy blow to Franco-German ambitions for a prominent role in building Europe's next-generation defense capabilities. Both Rafale and Eurofighter had pitched extensive industrial packages to Belgium in the hopes of bolstering their offers. Analysts had said that Belgium's decision could be a bellwether for future European fighter jet competitions. U.S. industry sources told Defense News this summer that they believed that President Donald Trump's rhetoric on NATO allies' defense spending and tariffs on steel and aluminum may have led Belgium to take a closer look at the European offers. Meanwhile, European defense officials and experts repeatedly made the case that Belgium should pick a European plane. For Brussels, the capital of Europe, to choose the U.S. plane would amount to nothing less than an act of “betrayal,” the French business journal La Tribune headlined on Monday. Two practical considerations were seen as playing heavily into the Belgian government's inclination toward the joint strike fighter: For one, the neighboring Netherlands already is an F-35 customer. The two countries agreed some years ago to pool their resources in policing their common airspace, and having only one aircraft type presumably would be good for interoperability. In addition, Belgium for decades has had an agreement with NATO that requires its planes to be capable of carrying U.S. nuclear weapons into a hypothetical atomic war. Belgium, like neighbor Germany, stores a few warheads within its borders for that purpose. Certifying a European-made aircraft, like the Airbus Eurofighter, for the nuclear mission after the F-16 is politically tricky and – some say – perhaps even undoable given the current state of trans-Atlantic affairs. In that line of thinking, a nuclear-capable F-35 could represent the most trouble-free option for Belgium. The Belgian decision is sure to be watched closely by Germany. Berlin is in the market to replace its Tornado aircraft, looking for roughly 90 new planes. While officials have said they prefer the Eurofighter, uncertainty surrounding the nuclear-weapons certification of the future fleet remains something of an elephant in the room. Belgium intends to buy 34 new fighters to replace its aging inventory of F-16s, which number about 54 jets — although that number may be even fewer after an embarrassing incident earlier this month, where a mechanic accidentally opened fire while doing repair work and and blew up a neighboring F-16. In January, the U.S. State Department pre-emptively approved a $6.53 billion F-35 sale to Belgium that would include 34 F-35A conventional takeoff and landing variants, 38 F-135 engines manufactured by Pratt & Whitney, and a slew of other equipment to enable operations, training and logistics. That estimate is expected to come down as Lockheed and the government hammer out a final contract. https://www.defensenews.com/air/2018/10/22/belgium-reportedly-picks-f-35-for-future-fighter-jet
9 avril 2020 | International, Terrestre
President Trump has authorized only 34 states to receive federal funding and benefits for their Guard troops. While all of them get paid -- many out of rapidly depleting state coffers -- most aren't yet getting full health coverage. By SYDNEY J. FREEDBERG JR WASHINGTON: Legal arcana and the narrow wording of President Trump's orders are complicating the mobilization of National Guard troops to combat the COVID-19 coronavirus. The Pentagon, the White House, and the states are working urgently to increase the number of troops with federal funding and full benefits, said Gen. Joseph Lengyel, the four-star chief of the National Guard Bureau, in a phone briefing with reporters this afternoon. Part of the problem is that President Trump has not actually authorized federal funding and benefits for every state. Only 34 states and three territories are currently covered by his call-up orders, with 16 states and the District of Columbia still ineligible. (The full list is at the end of this article). Indeed, it's not clear that all states have even requested federal support for their Guard troops, especially in rural areas where the spread of the virus has been slower and suspicion of the federal government can be high. Even once the president authorizes a given state, FEMA must still approve each request for funding. Finally, until yesterday, President Trump's orders only permitted Guard troops to operate under federal orders for up to 30 days – one day too short to qualify for federal health coverage and other benefits. So how many servicemembers are affected? 28,400 personnel from both the Army and Air National Guard have been called up to help with the pandemic, Lengyel reported, a figure that's now rising by more than 1,000 troops every day. However, more than 13,000 of those troops are currently mobilized under state legal authorities, at their states' expense. While their pay in this status is usually consistent with federal payscales — some states are less generous – their benefits are typically limited to basic workers' compensation. Worse, whatever they get may not be sustainable since state coffers are being rapidly depleted by the crisis. Not quite 11,000 are currently mobilized under Title 32, Section 502(f), which allows state governors to retain command-and-control of their Guard in local emergencies but provides federal funding – a number that is “growing rapidly,” Lengyel said. But even among Guard troops on those federal Title 32 orders, it appears that most don't yet enjoy the same benefits as members of the regular active-duty military and reserve working alongside them. In particular, most Guard troops aren't getting the Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH), which helps troops on duty far from home pay for lodging if the military can't provide it, and they don't get access to the military's nationwide healthcare network, Tricare. (Guard troops can go to military hospitals for free, but few of the coronavirus hotspots they've been called to are anywhere near a base). Some 349 Guard troops have tested positive for COVID-19, although many of those were infected in civilian life and aren't being called up. Why aren't all troops on federal orders already? And why aren't all the troops on federal orders getting full benefits? That has to do with the often-obscure laws governing the National Guard and the way President Trump has chosen to invoke them. First, Trump hasn't yet authorized federally funded Title 32 call-ups across the country. Instead, on March 22, he authorized them only for Washington State, California, and New York – the three initial hotspots – and then began adding states a few at a time in subsequent orders on March 28, March 30th, April 2nd and April 7th. “FEMA generally gives shorter duration mission assignments, normally two weeks,” Lengyel explained, since most domestic disasters take less than a month to resolve. “We in the National Bureau and the Department of Defense saw this [coronavirus] clearly is going to go into May and maybe beyond, [but] FEMA was restricted [in] writing the mission assignments to what was authorized in the presidential memorandum. “I don't want to speculate on why they chose 30 days, but the difference between 30 and 31 is significant,” the general said. “We recommended a longer period of time at the beginning.” The National Guard Association of the US, an influential independent advocacy groups for Guard units, members, and families, has been watching the situation intently and pressing for an expansion of the Title 32 orders. Consistency has been lacking, lamented John Goheen, NGAUS's chief spokesman: “It's really a patchwork as you look around the country, and states are going to interpret things differently. “Section 502(f) of Title 32 was never designed for this. As a result, we are seeing of lot of bureaucratic obstacles and inflexibility,” Goheen told me this afternoon. “Case in point is the limitation on the number of days. NGAUS will be looking to change the law in the future to provide more flexibility.” The last time Title 32 was used on such a scale was Hurricane Katrina, Goheen said “There were some concerns [after Katrina] about the Defense Department being reimbursed so the Defense Department's been reluctant to use it,” he said. However reluctant the Pentagon bureaucracy in general may be, Gen. Lengyel made clear he is trying to fix the situation. “We're authorized now to bring on up to 44,000 total members of the National Guard covered under ...Title 32 ... which gives them federal pay but state control, and now — because the [April 7th] memorandum allows them to be covered for up to 31 days — they will have full insurance and medical benefits,” he said. But troops who were authorized earlier on shorter orders will have to be switched to 31 days, and making sure all new call-ups are for 31, is an ongoing process, Lengyel acknowledged: “There was some sand in the gears on making sure that we had the cost figures right so that FEMA had the exact numbers.” Meanwhile, he said, his staff and the states have started planning for the annual hurricane season. “By hurricane season, which starts in June, obviously, we're hopeful this begins to lull,” he said, “[but] we in fact are looking at implications of what it might be like to do a hurricane response in a COVID environment.” His staff and the states Guard headquarters, he said, are conducting their planning by telephone and video-teleconference (VTC) instead of the usual in-person meetings. Below is the full list of which states President Trump authorized for federally-funded National Guard callups, by date: March 22, three states: California, New York, and Washington. March 28, five states and two territories: Florida, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey; Guam and Puerto Rico. March 30, three states: Connecticut, Illinois, and Michigan. April 2, 10 states, one territory: Georgia, Hawaii, Indiana, Missouri, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Texas; US Virgin Islands. April 7, 13 states: Arizona, Colorado, Kentucky, Mississippi, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin, and West Virginia. https://breakingdefense.com/2020/04/covid-19-federal-funds-benefits-lag-for-national-guard